Why Deptford beer shop has shunned Beavertown and Fourpure

Co-owner of Hop Burns And Black Jen Ferguson says it feels a duty to champion independent breweries who haven’t sold out to big business. She sees non-alcoholic brands like FitBeer in Bermondsey and Japansese beers as the next big trends.

When chatting to Jen Ferguson owner of a recently opened craft beer venue in Deptford she said some things I really didn’t expect to hear.

“It’s a good time to not be drinking alcohol,” was one of them.

But it’s not a case of self sabotage, the co-founder of Hop Burns And Black, which specialises in beers, hot sauce and vinyl, is simply expounding on the amazing array of non-alcoholic options now on the market.

“It’s a huge thing and our sales have gone up by 150% in the last year,” said the 43-year-old.

“Brewers are now able to make a low or no alcohol beer that tastes as good as one with alcohol so people who are pregnant or training for events or just don’t want to drink can get all the flavour and enjoyment, without the headache.”

It opened on June 28 after Jen and partner Glenn Williams, 40, found award-winning success with their first shop in Peckham which opened in 2014.

The native New Zealanders were lured to Deptford by its “great community” and blossoming craft beer scene and Jen said they worked hard to unearth and support local independent breweries and fought back against big businesses.

And that has meant taking two of their biggest brands off the shelves this summer – Beavertown which in June sold a £40milion stake in its business to Heineken and Fourpure, which sold 100% to Lion Kirin.

“Craft beer used to be a lot of independent breweries working together for the good of the industry,” said Jen who previously worked in PR, “Now there is a lot more of a threat from the likes of these corporates.

“With every brewery that’s acquired by a multinational it makes it much harder for a small independent to compete on a level playing field.

“It does annoy me as we have worked with Beavertown and Fourpure since we opened but we had to stop selling their beers, which has been a real shame.

“But we are passionate about the independent scene and think it is good to hold out as long as you can and keep fighting the good fight for the little guys.”

The capital now has around 100 independent breweries, which means there are always new flavours to try and the shop has a roster of around 350 with 20 new beers on sale each week.

“We try to share out the tasting amongst staff otherwise we’d have a terrible drinking problem,” said Jen who is a fan of the new lagers being brewed.

“It has been quite underrated over the last few years,” she said.

“People think of cheap Fosters but it is actually a really hard beer to get right.

“You can’t hide any faults in it by throwing more hops in so you know if you were drinking a good lager it’s a really good beer.

“Brick Brewery Peckham Pils has always been one of our best selling beers and now they have their new brewery in Deptford it’s tasting really good.”

Visitors to the shop will find it in the specialist south-east London section alongside beers from Villages brewery based in Resolution Way and The Kernal Brewery in Bermondsey.

But they also source beers from across the world, with Augustiner lager from Germany being a top five seller, seeking out the latest innovations.

“Pastry stouts are big right now,” said Jen.

“There is a bit of a trend these days for dark beers with peanut butter or pecan pie flavours.

“We also have a sour beer in at the moment from Brewery called Beerbliotek in Sweden which is made with potato and spruce tips.

“It seems these days people will put anything into beer and whatever your preferred flavour is you can find it.”

For those wanting to get ahead of the curve Jen recommended keeping an eye on Japan.

“My best beer experience was during a trip to Yokohama,” she said.

“We staggered out of this torrential rain to find this little brewery making its own English-style ales, proper old school bitters, which was an unexpected, wonderful delight.

“Japan will probably end up being one of the big craft beer producers of the world because they do some things with such attention to detail.”

Visitors to the new shop can browse and take away all the beers or enjoy a can or bottle at one of the small tables, along with a sausage roll or scotch eggs dipped in its range of around 70 hot sauces.

They come from the UK, New Zealand, America and the Caribbean and include Baj’s Blazin from Greenwich and Hop Burns And Black’s own range of three sauces made with Peckham street food kitchen Slow Richie’s.

“Hot sauce is one of the fastest growing categories in the last three years it has really claimed a place at the table of everyday consumers,” said Jen.

“Like craft beer, we had really good timing and it is really on the rise, which isn’t the reason we started selling it but has certainly been good for us.

The final piece of the puzzle is the vinyl, which is shared via a soundtrack that celebrates their shared love of music and eclectic collection.

The couple met at a music festival. Glenn worked as a radio host and both DJ in their spare time.

Jen favours funk, soul and disco and Glenn more modern electronic tunes.

Jen, who previously worked as a magazine sub-editor for the Mirror in Canary Wharf and then in PR for the likes of Microsoft, Google and Samsung said the three-pronged concept came about after they got sick of their day jobs.

“We were both a little bit disenchanted with the daily grind,” said the Peckham resident who sold her home in Auckland to finance the first shop.

“We followed the old adage that if you do something you love it doesn’t feel like work so we thought about what we loved and beer, closely followed by hot sauces and music.

“That’s how this came about – the Hop being the beer the Burns being the sauce and the Black being the vinyl records.

“It might seem like an odd mix of things but we have surrounded ourselves by the things that we love and it turns out quite a lot of people like that as well.”